ASW improvement suggestions

[Figment]

See poll content for some suggestions on how to improve ASW and sub interaction.

Similar poll regarding acceptability of submarine weapons: 

 

[Verblonde]

9 minutes ago, Figment said:

how to improve ASW and sub interaction.

My humble suggestion:

1. Remove submarines entirely.
2. Make the depth-charge button trigger something akin to the Grandmaster's 'party ship' like in Thor:

[Siagor]

My even humbler suggestion:

 

Send Submarines and CVs into a game mode of their own. Let them chase, torp and depth charge each other to their heart's content. Occasionally feed them pink ships till pinks repent and return to normal gameplay.

[Northern_Nightowl]

Given that submarines will likely stay, I like the OP's suggestions and answered.

 

Generally, I'd like to see WoWS getting more distance from arcadey modes (high speed subs, instant spotting, technologically unsound mechanisms as speedboosts, reload boosters, rock penetrating radar) and becoming more of a simulation. Such a simulation should and must have tradeoffs between realism and gameplay, but the current balance is IMHO too far on the arcade side.

 

Regards, Nightowl

[Panocek]

1 hour ago, Northern_Nightowl said:

Generally, I'd like to see WoWS getting more distance from arcadey modes (high speed subs, instant spotting, technologically unsound mechanisms as speedboosts, reload boosters, rock penetrating radar) and becoming more of a simulation. Such a simulation should and must have tradeoffs between realism and gameplay, but the current balance is IMHO too far on the arcade side.

Which is extremely unlikely to happen as WG games at very best used "history" and "realism" as inspiration. Even less so, as WoWs is extremely shallow game on mechanics level and if you were to remove most ahistorical gimmicks... you'd end up with the same ship with different national flag and looks.

[Karasu_Browarszky]

1 hour ago, Northern_Nightowl said:

Given that submarines will likely stay, I like the OP's suggestions and answered.

 

Generally, I'd like to see WoWS getting more distance from arcadey modes (high speed subs, instant spotting, technologically unsound mechanisms as speedboosts, reload boosters, rock penetrating radar) and becoming more of a simulation. Such a simulation should and must have tradeoffs between realism and gameplay, but the current balance is IMHO too far on the arcade side.

 

Regards, Nightowl

 

You and me both answered then. Good poll, start voting folks!

[NewHorizons_1]

2 hours ago, Siagor said:

My even humbler suggestion:

 

Send Submarines and CVs into a game mode of their own. Let them chase, torp and depth charge each other to their heart's content. Occasionally feed them pink ships till pinks repent and return to normal gameplay.

I've had a similar idea myself.

"Random" matches for those spehsul CV & sub players** are actually a variant of co-op in disguise.

Only human players are in CVs & subs - all the surface ships are bots.

Can't be hard for WG to generate player names - [CLAWS] did it - and clan tags to make the team lists look believable.

WG could probably generate believable stats if anyone bothers to look at the bot's "profile".

To make them feel right at home the bot responds with some salt in chat and they may lose a karma point or two when they get a kill or blow a DDs cover by spotting it.

I wonder how long it would take them to notice??

 

** those that claim CVs need buffs & are discriminated against and those that claim subs are ready for release.

 

[Siagor]

Just now, NewHorizons_1 said:

I've had a similar idea myself.

"Random" matches for those spehsul CV & sub players** are actually a variant of co-op in disguise.

Only human players are in CVs & subs - all the surface ships are bots.

Can't be hard for WG to generate player names - [CLAWS] did it - and clan tags to make the team lists look believable.

WG could probably generate believable stats if anyone bothers to look at the bot's "profile".

To make them feel right at home the bot responds with some salt in chat and they may lose a karma point or two when they get a kill or blow a DDs cover by spotting it.

 

** those that claim CVs need buffs & are discriminated against and those that claim subs are ready for release.

 

Also a good one.

+1

[RenamedUser_92906789]

I reapect your effort. But wg.feeds suggestions directly to shredder.

[ross1193]

Just delete the F'ing things (subs)!!!!!

[Bland_42]

I haven't voted because I think that, while the current implementation is oversemplified and limitated, your propositions are unnecessarily intricate for a player not expert enough (like a lot of people in game).

 

In my mind ASW will be:

• for DDs, side or back launched deep charges (like the currents) with highlighted deploy area, plus from T8 a Hedgehog/Squid/Limbo launcher with an "aiming zone" and impact detonation only;
• for cruisers, back launched deep charges (like current germans) with highlighted deploy area, plus from T8 air launched deep charges, these not in pattern but a single cluster deploy;
• for BBs, air launched deep charges that will be replaced by Mark 24 mine "FIDO" (something like a short range self-homing torp) from T8 upward;
• For CVs, a specialized air squadron to take instead of one of the others (maybe a nation specific choice) with multiple BB like deploys.

Hydro need to detect subs if they are at periscope deep or underwater, but not if they are at max deep.

 

For subs, I think it will be better if being underwater will be almost like being in smoke: limited 2km spotting range. Possible use of hydro for spotting, but this will mark on map the quadrant where the sub is located.

Periscope will be like the actual situation (oversemplified, but "arcade" enough).

 

Remove all the ping mechanics, give at T6-8 subs the same torps of the same nation DDs, and only at T10 the choice for self-homing passive torps... that will lost the homing if target stop his propulsion.

 

Also, give to subs a needed minimum time for self repair floodings when coming on surface.

Lastly, make impossible for a sub to insta-kill another ship by ramming: will be enough if he can damage the enemy ship by half of the total hp of the sub.

[Nibenay78]

My suggestion, play the game less...

 

Which I (think) I have...

[lovelacebeer]

Some interesting ideas and if the maps were way bigger and games much longer to allow for a proper mini game of sub hunting etc whilst the main battle unfolds it would be epic. 
 

However all these suggestions would require too much effort on the part of WG to make happen, especially within the confines of how the game is.

[Nibenay78]

24 minutes ago, lovelacebeer said:

Some interesting ideas and if the maps were way bigger and games much longer to allow for a proper mini game of sub hunting etc whilst the main battle unfolds it would be epic

This is not the sort of casual game that WG wants wows and wot to be. They want short battles that most have time for to reach a broad audience. Preferably ones that p2notgrind

[Bland_42]

Well... I'm about to write the usual midnight's crazy idea.

 

Maybe the better choice for WG, that will make everyone more or less happy (I know... sounds incredible impossible) will be make a sort of "double game".

 

Create an identical copy of every tech-tree in game, with every ship and also every premium, but giving to this "new" ships more historical stats, maybe with the "help" of players opinion (with something like a monthly poll) and naming them... something like a second version (example: "Kongo beta").

The players could research this new tech-trees only after completing the research of the original ones (something like RB).

The new ships will give to the players a lower income compared to the classic ones.

There will be a separated MM, so no mixture of classic ships with new ships.

 

Theoretically this "thing" will give even more income to WG, because while casual players could still play like always, to use the new ships players will be good or will be whales, and there will be a second series of premiums to sell.

 

OK folks, free laughs now.

[Figment]

12 hours ago, lovelacebeer said:

Some interesting ideas and if the maps were way bigger and games much longer to allow for a proper mini game of sub hunting etc whilst the main battle unfolds it would be epic. 
 

However all these suggestions would require too much effort on the part of WG to make happen, especially within the confines of how the game is.

Don’t think we need bigger maps at all.

 

What we need is to get subs in a position where they’re more easily taken by surprise due to a lack of situational awareness. Sneaking up on its target should be dangerous. Managing that should be a feat. It means for one that the sub has to get closer to their enemy than now and more often stay close to the surface in order to strike, given that their detection range is by nature so short. Hence I would limit dive time more, forcing subs to ping to get their bearings to see if it is save to surface.

 

The stealth is a bit problematic against the distance they can currently cover with fast moving torpedoes, while the countermeasures are very specific and too hard to lead for most players with poor feedback on what constituted a near miss or a hit.

 

What’s the point of making a glass canon with high camo, if you don’t absolutely need the camo to get close and risk an attack? 

 

IMO we need to get to a situation where subs get to within 5-8km of their target, preferably closer even, thus vulnerable to detection and being chased down and due to long reload, after one or two volleys having to be running to try another ambush. Cat and mouse play and therefore situational awareness should be important.

 

Long range and fast torp weapons thus shouldn’t be applied as today. Rather, slower torps with shorter range, so dodging can be attempted. But if such a sub hits it should be powerful in order to have carrying potential. High speed as they have now is okay, as long as it comes with a long turning radius, so escape is still hard and needs to be planned and initiated in time lest the sub runs straight into their enemies. It should be vulnerable to agile ships, that can out-manoeuvre it, so even if it has speed to get into position, it needs a lot of path planning before and after the strike, particularly given poor situational awareness. The few strikes it will get should be meaningful to be decisive, it may not get that many chances.

 

 

So yeah, IMO WG’s vision of subs is all wrong. It should be a short range assassin with all the risks that come with getting close to the enemy, not a long range stealth harasser.

 

PlanetSide 2 made a similar mistake. In PS1 you had cloaked infiltrators with next to no range (1.5m effective range with one shotgun pistol and you still needed four to five shots (5s ttk)). You basically had to sneak up to knifing distance in the back of people and engage while they were distracted to have a chance by getting a headstart in the coming duel and with so many people around not immediately being shot and being able to lose pursuants with dark light. They were basically base saboteurs to allow people to enter bases and at high risk assassins. Snipers didn’t get camo. Those were only allowed with heavier highly visible suits. Good infils stood in high standing because it was hard and took a lot of patience.

 

In PS2 they gave stealth infantry short range 1s ttk UZIs and one shot sniper rifles. But no meaningful sabotage to do at bases that jetpacks (obsoleted walls…) couldn’t reach more easily. Role definement in context is important. People hated infils for sudden death from everywhere.

 

PS: after spending 18 years on online development forums it’s funny how consistent the defeatists keep demanding others to scrap any idea generation and be as defeatist as themselves to make their self-fulfilling prophecies of dev inaction and game destruction true (whereas I’ve had about 80+ ideas implemented in various games where “devs wern’t supposed to be listening”)… I will never understand desillusioned self-defeating stupidity. Play the long game. Remember:

 

Quote

You have to shoot if you want to score. -JC

 

And also wonder why after years of posting in the same forum environment I have to explain a number of those same people I don’t give a rat’s arse for their unconstructive, nothing accomplishing, dimwitted whining. :/

[Spellfire40]

17 hours ago, Northern_Nightowl said:

Given that submarines will likely stay, I like the OP's suggestions and answered.

 

Generally, I'd like to see WoWS getting more distance from arcadey modes (high speed subs, instant spotting, technologically unsound mechanisms as speedboosts, reload boosters, rock penetrating radar) and becoming more of a simulation. Such a simulation should and must have tradeoffs between realism and gameplay, but the current balance is IMHO too far on the arcade side.

 

Regards, Nightowl

Play warthunder then you see why nobody like simulations of wargames and even they dont get it right with Atlantas crewkilling Hippers. And from his question he is only interested in how to deal with subs there is no metioning of the baterie mechanic for example wich screws you in 4 to 5 min if your team just bails your flank or get destroyed because they yoloed worse than a bot. I for example find it horendous that BBs that sail backwards most of the time can click on a patch of ocean while DDs and certain other ships have to be above a sub to damage it. At least the unit spoting should get 100% as much exp as teh bbs(or any other ships that uses ASW planes) sending out vultures with little danger to themself.

Plus pinging dont work others than making sure that even 20kn BBs can dodge your torps due to the terminal drive of torps. And im not even going inn on sub vs sub "counterplay "

 

Its not so much that subs do not fit the game (thogh they dont) its that even its mechanics are a abloute garbage both on the sub side and the anti sub side.

[lovelacebeer]

39 minutes ago, Figment said:

Don’t think we need bigger maps at all.

 

What we need is to get subs in a position where they’re more easily taken by surprise due to a lack of situational awareness. Sneaking up on its target should be dangerous. Managing that should be a feat. It means for one that the sub has to get closer to their enemy than now and more often stay close to the surface in order to strike, given that their detection range is by nature so short. Hence I would limit dive time more, forcing subs to ping to get their bearings to see if it is save to surface.

 

The stealth is a bit problematic against the distance they can currently cover with fast moving torpedoes, while the countermeasures are very specific and too hard to lead for most players with poor feedback on what constituted a near miss or a hit.

 

What’s the point of making a glass canon with high camo, if you don’t absolutely need the camo to get close and risk an attack? 

 

IMO we need to get to a situation where subs get to within 5-8km of their target, preferably closer even, thus vulnerable to detection and being chased down and due to long reload, after one or two volleys having to be running to try another ambush. Cat and mouse play and therefore situational awareness should be important.

 

Long range and fast torp weapons thus shouldn’t be applied as today. Rather, slower torps with shorter range, so dodging can be attempted. But if such a sub hits it should be powerful in order to have carrying potential. High speed as they have now is okay, as long as it comes with a long turning radius, so escape is still hard and needs to be planned and initiated in time lest the sub runs straight into their enemies. It should be vulnerable to agile ships, that can out-manoeuvre it, so even if it has speed to get into position, it needs a lot of path planning before and after the strike, particularly given poor situational awareness. The few strikes it will get should be meaningful to be decisive, it may not get that many chances.

 

 

So yeah, IMO WG’s vision of subs is all wrong. It should be a short range assassin with all the risks that come with getting close to the enemy, not a long range stealth harasser.

 

PlanetSide 2 made a similar mistake. In PS1 you had cloaked infiltrators with next to no range (1.5m effective range with one shotgun pistol and you still needed four to five shots (5s ttk)). You basically had to sneak up to knifing distance in the back of people and engage while they were distracted to have a chance by getting a headstart in the coming duel and with so many people around not immediately being shot and being able to lose pursuants with dark light. They were basically base saboteurs to allow people to enter bases and at high risk assassins. Snipers didn’t get camo. Those were only allowed with heavier highly visible suits. Good infils stood in high standing because it was hard and took a lot of patience.

 

In PS2 they gave stealth infantry short range 1s ttk UZIs and one shot sniper rifles. But no meaningful sabotage to do at bases that jetpacks (obsoleted walls…) couldn’t reach more easily. Role definement in context is important. People hated infils for sudden death from everywhere.

 

PS: after spending 18 years on online development forums it’s funny how consistent the defeatists keep demanding others to scrap any idea generation and be as defeatist as themselves to make their self-fulfilling prophecies of dev inaction and game destruction true (whereas I’ve had about 80+ ideas implemented in various games where “devs wern’t supposed to be listening”)… I will never understand desillusioned self-defeating stupidity. Play the long game. Remember:

 

 

And also wonder why after years of posting in the same forum environment I have to explain a number of those same people I don’t give a rat’s arse for their unconstructive, nothing accomplishing, dimwitted whining. :/

First off I would like to make clear I’m not at all opposed to people suggesting ideas, I do it too from time more recently I proposed ideas for new operations ( even though I know there isn’t a snowballs chance in hell of WG making new operations).

 

Also I much prefer your vision vs WG’s for how submarines should be in game. I am a huge fan of submarine games and really love the history around them. It is mainly for those reasons I loath how badly WG have designed the submarine gameplay. 
 

The cat and mouse gameplay aspect you mention is exactly what makes submarine games so cool and yet WG have utterly removed that element. However given the way spotting in game works (and assuming there isn’t going to be a major rework in that regard) and the need for time to engage in sub hunting I believe would be best served with larger maps to create the situation you mention for engagements between subs and surface ships. 
 

Now I have no reason to doubt you when you say you have had over 80 ideas implemented across various game,  but I prefer to remain realistic when it comes to WG and just how stubborn they are when it comes to their big ideas. 

[Figment]

3 hours ago, lovelacebeer said:

First off I would like to make clear I’m not at all opposed to people suggesting ideas, I do it too from time more recently I proposed ideas for new operations ( even though I know there isn’t a snowballs chance in hell of WG making new operations).

I think we should get WG to create a player OP designer mod kit. Loads of publishers use player made content in their games and this really shouldn’t be that hard. I got SOE to let players do the custom skins and all as well for PS2, in the end they just needed to approve submitted content rather than make it and it was very lucrative for both modders and publisher.

 

Just need to find an angle to make it more lucrative for WG, like removing all coding time. Free content generation…

Quote

Also I much prefer your vision vs WG’s for how submarines should be in game. I am a huge fan of submarine games and really love the history around them. It is mainly for those reasons I loath how badly WG have designed the submarine gameplay. 
 

The cat and mouse gameplay aspect you mention is exactly what makes submarine games so cool and yet WG have utterly removed that element. However given the way spotting in game works (and assuming there isn’t going to be a major rework in that regard) and the need for time to engage in sub hunting I believe would be best served with larger maps to create the situation you mention for engagements between subs and surface ships. 

But WoWs is set up to draw players ever closer, most of the bigger map wouldn’t be used, too big and you can’t find players that don’t want to be found. With the type of objectives we have, subs should be able to move around the map at a reasonable cruise speed. (IMO -4% to -10% wrt DDs of the same tier should allow for enough catching up).

Quote

Now I have no reason to doubt you when you say you have had over 80 ideas implemented across various game,  but I prefer to remain realistic when it comes to WG and just how stubborn they are when it comes to their big ideas. 

I’m realistic as well, I’ve had way more success with other dev teams.

 

However, I’ve also not have had to spend so much energy fighting apathic, yet hostile to non-apathic players trying to drive other players away and spamming your topics with garbage posts elsewhere either.

 

People want to act desillusioned and don’t want to be constructive? They should go right ahead, in their own topics. All they do is make devs stop reading topics that might have peaked their interest.

 

My problem with these people is that all they do is complain, without being able to point to an alternative that the community does want. When that happens chances of being implemented rise, due to reduced risk and greater acceptance while not obsoleting all investment made thus far (removal is not an option).

[ThePopesHolyFinger]

My ASW suggestion:
Maybe give us the slightest idea of where subs are - zoomed in, I hear a ping, zoom out and have no idea where the subs is.
On the odd chance I actually see a sub, maybe let us know if my depth charges exit the ship from the front, side or back of my ship. It would be a little bit useful if we could see the damage radius also. \\\\\\\\
Just some minor points because submarines are retarded.

[Ronchabale]

Plain and simple no..

There is no gain in twiggling the parameters coz they are already all over the place and very unrealistic (yes, it´s a game)

Sub implementation is broken, needs to be removed and completely reworked 

[Figment]

13 hours ago, Ronchabale said:

Plain and simple no..

There is no gain in twiggling the parameters coz they are already all over the place and very unrealistic (yes, it´s a game)

Sub implementation is broken, needs to be removed and completely reworked 

So you say no to completely revamping sub-play... (starting with ASW) Because it has to be completely revamped.

 

 

Right.

 

 

Good argument.

 

 

Plain and simple, READ.

[lovelacebeer]

12 minutes ago, Figment said:

So you say no to completely revamping sub-play... (starting with ASW) Because it has to be completely revamped.

 

 

Right.

 

 

Good argument.

 

 

Plain and simple, READ.

To be fair your opening post does significantly  fail to explain the extent of how much of the submarine project you would rework. 
 

Your suggestions only really made sense once you explained yourself better on post number 16, until then it comes across as rather tinkering at the edges. 

[Figment]

2 minutes ago, lovelacebeer said:

To be fair your opening post does significantly  fail to explain the extent of how much of the submarine project you would rework. 
 

Your suggestions only really made sense once you explained yourself better on post number 16. 

I'd prefered it they'd use their limited TLDR attentionspan for a poll in this case.

[Ronchabale]

21 hours ago, Figment said:

So you say no to completely revamping sub-play... (starting with ASW) Because it has to be completely revamped.

 

 

Right.

 

 

Good argument.

 

 

Plain and simple, READ.

I aint the one trying to fit a square block through a round hole..

Yes, but not while they are in the game